Inspiration4 safely splashes down
The Dragon capsule Resilience safely splashed down today as planned in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida with its 4 Inspiration4 passengers.
This was the second flight for Resilience.
The live stream is embedded below. As I write this the recovery of the capsule is ongoing.
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Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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The Dragon capsule Resilience safely splashed down today as planned in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida with its 4 Inspiration4 passengers.
This was the second flight for Resilience.
The live stream is embedded below. As I write this the recovery of the capsule is ongoing.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Why would you spend tens of millions for minutes in “space” on blue origin when you can spend days in space for the same price?
David K: The price is not the same. The suborbital flights seem right now to be rounding out at a little below half a million, while the orbital flights are presently about $50 million per ticket.
Question–
How functional are these space-suits?
Wayne: These are NOT spacesuits. They are FLIGHT suits, specifically designed as an extra layer of protection within the capsule. Think of the suits jet pilots wear.
The suits link up with Dragon’s systems to provide a variety of needs, while also acting as a redundancy if the capsule itself should have a leak or failure.
Mr. Z.–
thank you.
I am glad they are down safe and sound. It looks like the mission was a success. The crew did amazing things, namely showing that you don’t need years of training to go to space (orbit in fact). This MUST become the norm. If we are to embrace space travel then we must embrace everyday citizens taking trips to space. Only when that happens can we truly expand beyond Earth.
Eric Berger tweets: “Thanks @NASA! Saved SpaceX in 2008, created the commercial crew program in 2010, and fully supported the development of Crew Dragon. Today’s mission does not happen without the government’s vision of being one of many customers of spaceflight.”
Every word of this is true. Inspiration4 has executed on the rationale NASA had for Commercial Crew, just as Falcon 9’s dominance of the commercial global launch market did: To help facilitate the emergence of commercial U.S. space capabilities for which NASA is just one customer among many, and thereby to benefit from (much) lower costs and greater advances in capability than NASA itself could ever achieve, allowing it to get much more exploration bang for its bucks.
So in addition to all the accolades for Elon, Gwynne, Hans, and all the SpaceX team over the past decade, credit is also due to those few leaders at NASA who pushed and stayed the course on this radical departure in how NASA procures spaceflight: chiefly, Lori Garver, Jim Bridenstine, Kathy Lueders, and even, in his own way, Bill Gerstenmeier (now happily employed at SpaceX himself). Let us hope this paves the way for a complete NASA shift to such programs going forward, with SLS and Orion soon to be retired as the final relics of a past age of NASA operated systems.
Back when most of the big federal agencies were first created, the purpose was to help the public get something done. The Department of Agriculture shared info and resources with farmers to get crops planted when and where they would provide the best yields. NACA would gather information from various experimental programs and share that with the aircraft manufacturers, and would in fact come around with suggestions, “we know you’re thinking of doing X, but don’t know how to do it yet. Other manufacturer Z has been working with us on that problem for a research program, here is the data.”
Somewhere along the way, all these agencies have lost their way, and they are no longer partners with the public, but view us, and particularly any “corporation” that proposes to actually “gasp!” make money, as the enemy to constrained, confronted, and restricted, on behalf of… “the people.” Actual concrete people who want to do things are opposed on behalf of some amorphous concept of the people as a whole.
It’s good to see NASA taking small steps back towards what NACA once was, but don’t overstate it, it’s been very small steps, encouraged mostly by people who aren’t there anymore.
Don’t be so quick to count NASA out.
Now with ISS there isn’t much time to dream…because they are doing actual science.
But you do need people in space in an unhurried capacity to actually try things off the cuff. Non-goal directed research is where most our advances come from.
Both rigor (old space) and vigor (new space) are needed.
“because they are doing actual science”
I hear that all the time. But so many of the most basic questions we started asking before we sent the first man to space remain not only unanswered, but without any useful experiments having been run. Has there been any long duration study of the whole life cycle of something even so large as a mouse? Has there been any real progress on making a balanced meal from ingredients grown in space? How about any advanced medicine beyond “hope we can get them home in time?” How about trials of various radiation shielding techniques? Tethers, rotating platforms? The list of things that you would think should be among the very top priorities if we’re serious about living in space that have barely been scratched at. Once these proposals don’t have to make it through a dozen layers of bureaucracy I bet it makes all the science done over the whole lifetime of the ISS look pathetic very quickly.
Richard M, I hate to say it, but even Mike Griffin had a hand in commercial resupply, paving the way for commercial crew. As I understand, anyway. So that’s a plus to rank against his otherwise disastrous, gigantic list of minuses as NASA Administrator.
“because they are doing actual science”
People say that but always forget astronauts spend over half their available time taking care of the station. Doing station housekeeping duties included.
When we get maintenance men and janitors in space we will have finally moved in. Then again at that point we could just send young cheap students up to do those experiments instead of those expensive over trained and educated astronauts.
Does SLS count as “non goal directed research?”
Jeff Wright wrote: “because they are doing actual science.”
This is true, but it was true of the Space Shuttle. The main difference is that the rate of science per day in space is about the same, but the Shuttle spent far fewer days per year in space. I cannot wait for commercial space stations and commercial experiments and exploration to become the major factor. The rate of the science will increase greatly.
Inspiration4 did a few experiments, and this is an excellent start, showing the world that We the People can do experimentation and exploration, too, and that we are willing to pay for it ourselves rather than depend upon tax dollars.
David Eastman wrote: “so many of the most basic questions we started asking before we sent the first man to space remain not only unanswered, but without any useful experiments having been run.”
This is also true. Government space has had a different goal in mind. Even the goal of going to Mars (the assumed purpose of the ISS) has been neglected. As noted in the Space.com article reporting on astronaut Mark Vande Hei’s mission recently being extended to 345 days,
Vande Hei explains that he sees the extended stay as a crucial way for scientists to begin to understand how the human body withstands the long spaceflights that will be necessary to visit deep-space destinations like Mars.
Typically, space station visits last about six and a half months; a round trip to Mars would likely take more like two years, according to NASA.
“Thank you, Mark, for your dedication to @NASA and research that will prepare humanity for Artemis missions to the moon and later to Mars!” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson wrote in a tweet congratulating the astronaut on his mission extension.
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/astronauts-mission-on-iss-will-be-extended-to-almost-a-year/
ISS has been operational for a decade, but NASA has been reluctant to perform these long-duration missions. This informs us that NASA has not been eager to send men and materiel to Mars. Only now, a few years before ISS is scheduled to be decommissioned, are we “begin[ning] to understand how the human body withstands the long spaceflights that will be necessary to visit deep-space destinations like Mars.”
What were — and are — government’s goals? We are uncertain, and government may not know them, either. The announced goals can, do, and have changed over time. Meanwhile, companies like Blue Origin are eager to get back to the Moon, and companies like SpaceX are eager to go forth to Mars. There once was a debate over which of these two places we should go to first, but now that government budgets are getting out of the way and corporate budgets are taking over, we are coming to the realization that both can be done simultaneously.
Will we get answers to those questions that David Eastman reminded us are still pending? Possibly, but it depends upon whether We the People, who are now the ones doing the exploration, think the answers are still important. I think that they are, as they are likely necessary for many of the goals that We the People have for space.
Hi Patrick,
COTS is definitely a bright spot on Mike Griffin’s otherwise grim tenure at NASA. Still boggles my mind that he approved it, but credit where credit is due.
Question: They are obviously not space suits.
But are they pressure suits?
You said they would provide protection from exposure.
I found one article (that calls them space suits, BTW) that said you “jump in a vacuum”.
However, what I did not find was anything from SX on the specs for the suits.